


Begin again

by cydraulics



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 09:43:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16741633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cydraulics/pseuds/cydraulics
Summary: In another universe, this is how Rodimus finds out that Megatron kept his star.Spoilers for Lost Light 25.





	Begin again

Rodimus startled when the door chimed. He looked down sadly at his desk, where the line he’d been carefully carving now ended in a squiggle instead of a neat curve.

Nobody ever came to his hab suite except Drift. And even Drift never came over this late now that he was a happily bonded mech. He hoped to Primus it wasn’t Ultra Magnus on the hunt for that health & safety memo he’d been putting off for a decacycle.

The door chimed again.

“Coming!” He jumped into action, vaulting over his chair and crossing the room in one smooth hop. His hand slapped the control panel on its downswing.

_Yeah._

The door slid open to reveal Megatron.

“Megs?” Rodimus reset his optics but the view remained unchanged. “Something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Megatron said, a little too quickly.

Rodimus waited for more: an explanation, an accusation,  _something_. But Megatron only clasped his hands behind his back and cleared his throat, and that’s when his weirdness-meter went straight through the roof.

“May I come in?” Megatron said. His eyes shone, bright and wide-open.

Rodimus blinked.

Nothing about the situation changed appreciably once he stepped aside and let Megatron in. Instead of being large and stiff in the hall, Megatron was large and stiff inside his hab.

“Sorry it’s a mess,” he offered lamely.

In all the times he’d imagined Megatron  _here_ with him, things had never gone down like this. Usually there was a lot less standing around and a lot more hands running up and down his chassis, and— that was a train of thought he needed to head off  _immediately_. Primus, he needed a drink.

“You want something to drink?”

“No, thank you,” said Megatron, shaking his head.

“Good, because I don’t have anything. We could go to Swerve’s—“

“I came to see you,” Megatron interrupted, leaning forward. “Because it’s an anniversary for me, of sorts.”

Megatron stepped closer. His massive frame eclipsed the ceiling light and Rodimus stumbled back a half-step, as though they were dancing the world’s most awkward tango.

“Reflex, sorry,” he muttered. “What were you saying?”

Megatron stared down at him, optics dimmer than they’d been a moment ago. His mouth opened and shut again with an audible click, and Rodimus realized with a strange ache in his chest that whatever Megatron had come here for, it couldn’t have been an easy thing.

The least he could do was be patient.

“A year ago today you gave me my star,“ Megatron said finally.

“Star…” Rodimus said, frowning. “Star?”  

He watched as Megatron’s hand disappeared into a subspace pocket and drew something out of it.

“What’ve you got there?” He pointed at Megatron’s fist. It unfurled like a flower, and in the middle—

A tiny, battered Rodimus star. Cupped in Megatron’s open, outstretched palms, it looked like a holy relic or maybe a sacrificial offering. Rodimus reached across the distance between their frames and took it.

_One year ago._

“I can’t…” Rodimus reset his vocalizer, which did nothing for his swimming optics. “I can’t believe you actually remembered…”

Megatron smiled. “Do you remember why you gave it to me?”

As if he would ever forget Megatron’s poisonous glare. Or how he had growled but snatched the star from Rodimus’s hand anyway before stomping out of the bridge.

“For abandoning your evil ways,” they said together.

Their eyes met and held, and then they were bursting into helpless laughter, tension gone out of the room as if it had never existed at all.

“Shut up,” Rodimus snickered. “It’s what you deserved.”

“Yes,” Megatron said simply.

He was still smiling.

It took an effort to look away. He examined the star instead, turning it over and over again as if seeing it for the first time, even though he’d given out a hundred stars for a hundred trivial reasons. He traced its jagged, unfamiliar edges with reverence.

There was a history written in the worn metal that no longer gleamed but glowed a warm burnished gold. Each gouge and scrape was a battle that Megatron had fought on behalf of a people who were not his own, to secure the future of a world that wanted nothing of him.

He wanted to hear every one of those stories.

Unasked for, his processor presented him with an image as vivid as one of his fantasies, except it was this— _just this—_ Megatron in his room like he belonged there, their heads bent close in conversation, their frames shaking with laughter.

Overwhelmed, Rodimus offlined his optics. And then something else occurred to him that had his breath catching in his vents all over again.

“A year ago in  _our_ timeline but you were  _gone_. You held on to it for—“

“Eight hundred nineteen years, yes.”

“Shut  _up_ ,” Rodimus said faintly. “And stop finishing my sentences, people are gonna start talking.”

“In the functionist universe, it was my one link to my old life.” Megatron’s voice was pitched low, vibrant with intent. “My best life.”

“Our new life,” Rodimus said.

Slowly, Megatron took another step forward. And this time Rodimus met him halfway. 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to tumblr. Thanks to SirenSong for looking this over and letting me know about that tricky ao3 formatting :)


End file.
